Scrappy New Year: Why Hughton's search for stability won't be pretty

Right now, Chris Hughton has the opposite problem to Sabri Lamouchi. The Frenchman had a clear first team - or at least a core of 14/15 players - but lacked the squad depth to provide variety or add fresh legs. It was, in my opinion, a big factor in why we faded away so badly. His successor has a squad...but is yet to properly forge a formidable team from it. We remain, in an attacking sense, a collection of individuals in need of a pattern and plan and, as a result, are finding goals hard to come by.

That perhaps shouldn't come as a surprise. Adding so many players in one mad splurge was always going to create a headache. Not least when it's unclear how much strategy went into the recruitment. Why, for example, do we have so many wide players who would prefer to start on the right and drift inside onto their left foot? Why a glut of muscular, obdurate midfielders and not enough creators? Why didn't we get a balance of youth and experience? 

Miserable 2020 form has continued

Yet, while it takes time to find a workable team out of the current crop of players, it's increasingly dawning on us all that survival in the Championship might well be the best we can hope for this season. Perhaps understandably, that's causing us all to get a bit grumpy. But I am worried that this grumpiness will lead us into another blind alley if we're not careful.

Let's not beat about the bush; the Hughton era has been disappointing. Four wins from 17 games have continued the form of a miserable 2020 (although, incidentally that's two more wins than a certain someone in their first 17 games). There hasn't really been a new manager bounce or honeymoon period and there have been some pretty terrible games in that run.

Some of the responsibility for recent results clearly lies with the new manager - but I'd say that's only a small fraction. While I can understand why people are disappointed, I'm frustrated at the depressingly familiar air to the critique of current matches.

The club's strategy encourages 'negative' football

I'm seeing a lot of talk, for example, about Chris Hughton's negativity as a manager. Now, don't get me wrong; he's definitely a cautious coach and that's been evident in his career so far. But we need to ask ourselves why we end up in the circular debate with managers. Why is it that Sabri Lamouchi, Martin O'Neill, Aitor Karanka and Mark Warburton were all accused of the same thing? I'm all for fair criticism but ask yourself - is it really Chris Hughton's negative tactics and team selection that are annoying you... or is it the club's broader (lack of) strategy?

We're forever getting sucked into the here and now. This team selection, the 'tactics' in this game, the next signing, the next manager. I'm absolutely guilty of this too. However we need to look at a few home truths. Nottingham Forest is not a football club that's geared towards producing free flowing, exciting teams. That comes from the very top. The goal for each of those managers is 'promotion yesterday'. Faced with an ambitious goal and an unrealistic time frame, all have decided that the circumstances require pragmatism. A solid side that can compete with the physical challenges of the Championship has been the aim - with the hope that a spot of individual brilliance from a couple of key attackers can get enough results. Do you want to have to watch another new face take a dozen games to come this same conclusion again? I don't.

An attractive side with a clear identity could take three seasons to build. Along the way there'd be some poor results, naive defeats to streetwise Warnock-style sides and the need for patience and support - especially for the team's creative players. We'd lose young talent along the way and have to invest wisely in replacements. The owners don't want to sit through all of that and wait for a Brentford/Swansea to emerge. Unfortunately their short termism has rubbed off on a significant portion of the fanbase too - and too many of us wouldn't be prepared to get behind a project like that.

Building from the back

So, we are where we are. And, in those circumstances, Chris Hughton is probably trying to do the right thing. He's building from the back and trying to patch up the leaky, error-ridden defensive displays that could easily take us to League One if we're not careful. Let's not forget that player sales, injuries and form have torn up much of the foundations Sabri established last season. He's also having to patch something together during a relentless schedule - and it's probably no wonder that the run of defeats ended when we stopped playing the division's best sides. 

Let's face it - most people's aversion to defensive football disappears if it starts to pick up results. Sabri's tactics weren't a problem when they earned wins over the likes of Fulham away or Leeds at home. The thing people hate most is 'losing football'.

If Hughton can get Scott McKenna fit, you'd think he'd land on a workable back four. But we're still not quite there. With the defence a concern, the balance in midfield has erred towards the defensive. I'd like to see something a bit more dynamic from this part of the pitch - but I'm not the person who will have to deal with the fallout when we get overrun and lose games. I'm also a little bit concerned that we're left with lots of similar central midfielders for whom creativity isn't a strong suit. Perhaps, for now, Hughton feels he's playing to his strengths in midfield (while trying to get something more from Cafu).

While the process of building firm foundations continues, we'll all have to expect stodgy, scruffy performances such as The Karanka Stalemate against Birmingham (aptly that has a ring of a duff Boxing Day film). 

𝘏𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴: 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘃𝘀 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗮𝗺

The key moments from yesterday's draw at The City Ground ⚽️ #NFFC pic.twitter.com/PRAHQm9jCs

— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) December 27, 2020

Teams that go down lose lots of those games, teams that go up win them.

Yet teams that survive and begin moving in the right direction do have to find the quality to edge enough of those messy games at home - especially if they aren't to put undue pressure on themselves when faced with tricky trips to the likes of Stoke and Preston. 

By now, we'd all hoped that the ability to throw Lolley, Knockaert and Taylor on from the bench to win a game would be telling. Yet, there we are - still a squad without a team. While that situation stands - and while the bottom three is within touching distance - we're destined for a Scrappy New Year. 

The difficult second album? Sabri set for another Championship challenge

This year’s fixture release had more than a whiff of ‘the end of Bullseye’ about it, didn’t it? With little prospect of actually going to games just yet, we’ve been presented with ‘what we could’ve won’ were there no pandemic. Instead of an inappropriate speedboat, we’re missing out on trips to QPR, Huddersfield and Blackburn.

Of course, the hipster argument is to shrug and say that the fixtures never matter. We’re going to play everyone twice, so why care which order the games come in? Well, that’s alright if you assume that being a football fan involves cool-headed logic. Doesn’t being a fan really involve getting slightly over-obsessed by the tiniest detail? We care about shirt collars, formations, songs, silly stats and when we’re going to Reading. It might be ‘sad’, but who cares? I normally enjoy scouring through the schedule to map out possible away days (and usually to moan that the best trips are on rubbish days). But, this time even I can see that there’s little point getting too invested into what amounts to little more than a set of TV listings at the moment.
 
The fixtures aren’t the only thing that isn’t normal, of course. Having the same manager for two seasons in a row is arguably more of a surprise than having games played behind closed doors. Yet, here we are, on the cusp of a second season of Sabri as the Frenchman looks to wipe away memories of the catastrophic collapse at the end of 2019/20.

Transfer trio offer positive signs

 

The signs so far have been positive. I thought it was right to stick by Lamouchi and build on the foundations established last season – not least with such a short break between the two campaigns. Even if we’d wanted to do something drastic, it really wasn’t the right moment. We’ve recruited quickly – and smartly – to sign three free transfers to help too. In Jack Colback, Tyler Blackett and Lyle Taylor, we’ve captured experienced players with a proven record who will fight for first team roles and should add much-needed depth to the core group of potential starters. I won’t profess to know too much about the backroom appointments – but hopefully these have also been recruited in a bid to give extra support to a manager who has earned it.
 
This year has to be about evolution, not revolution. Signings also have to be about quality and not quantity and the work on the training ground needs to build on the good things about last season. This time last year, we were pondering a lot of unknowns. The manager proved himself worthy of more time while the likes of Brice Samba, Samba Sow, Yuri Ribeiro and Sammy Ameobi became established in the first team core – leaving us needing a couple of additions and depth, rather than scrabbling around trying to build again from scratch.

Not good enough at home

 

Chief among those, for me, is finding a plan to play at home. When the onus was on us to play on the front foot last season – and when there was an expectation to perform – we underwhelmed. We were, as I noted in the Famous Club’s post mortem, the division’s third best away team – based on points earned – but only the 13^th best at home. Indeed, we mustered five fewer points at home than in the 2016/17 season, when we only survived on the final day of the season. A little more creativity and flair in midfield seem key to this.
 
Some of the challenges awaiting Sabri and co seem straightforward to fix. We clearly needed better options from the bench to change a game – and a deeper squad capable of fitting into different formations against different opposition. For whatever reason, the likes of Alfa Semedo, Adama Diakhaby, John Bostock and Rafa Mir were never really able to offer a meaningful contribution on a consistent basis. The lack of options in the squad also meant we became over-reliant on a small core of first teamers who subsequently suffered from burn out as the long season wore on. It was abundantly clear we needed more firepower to support Grabban, fresh legs in the middle and a left footed defender to play three at the back if needed. With all of those secured, a number 10 and a winger are surely next on the radar.
 
The noises coming out of the club suggest the hierarchy accepts that some of the recruitment hasn’t quite been good enough and are keen to put that right. It is, however, important that we recognise that signings aren’t everything. Bristol City, for example, splashed the cash on Nakhi Wells in January and saw their promotion push fade away. We could easily have spent big in the mid-season window on decent players and still missed out and shouldn’t allow ourselves to believe this was the one simple answer to our problems. It’s crucial to both continue to blood youngsters and to coach the existing squad to improve. Who, for example, could be this year’s Matty Cash and take their game up a level? Ryan Yates? Alex Mighten? Brennan Johnson? With an eye-wateringly high wage bill and little FFP wriggle room, we have to find some of the missing pieces to the puzzle from within.

Changing the mentality

 

Yet, while it’s relatively straightforward to pinpoint the gaps in the team and squad, other issues might be less simple to resolve. The mentality of the players and their ability to perform under pressure has been questioned long before Sabri Lamouchi came to the club and remains so. The Stoke debacle only added to the sense that, when the chips are down, we struggle to cope. Even Lamouchi himself raised the fact that people had mentioned ‘typical Forest’ when we blew chances to cement a top six spot ahead of that last game. Which of us fans can truly say they’ve not thought ‘here we go again’ when we’ve conceded a goal or had a set back during a season. All too often that spills into moans and groans in the stadium or petulant comments to players on social media. Thanks to years of underperformance, we’re all stuck in a rut and need to get out of it. Last season offered both the hope that we were moving on from the mediocre days of recent times – and also proof for the pessimists that we’d somehow always find a way to mess things up. 
 
The end of season disaster could, if handled well, prove a powerful motivating message. The players could go out on a mission to put that behind them and go one better this time around. Yet, there’s also the chance that it could go the other way and be a millstone around our neck. You feel the manager, in particular, needs an early sign that the next campaign will be more a case of the former than the latter if he’s to retain the support of the ownership going forward – and keep sceptics at bay.

The challenge of the Championship

 

It’s hard, too, to know what to expect from our rivals. It’s been a long-held view of mine that the Championship is best seen as one big mid table. There’s so little gap in quality between top and bottom – and almost all of the teams at this level will harbour some sort of ambition to challenge at the top end of the table. Michael O’Neill’s Stoke – our final day nemeses – might well be on course to get themselves in the mix this time around, while I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mark Robins’ Coventry side continue their momentum after an excellent League One campaign. Those are two hunches of mine – but there’s a case to be made for most of the rest too. A truncated campaign, with some particularly crowded months (eight games in December, six in February) make the campaign seem tougher than ever to predict. Stamina, motivation and luck will all be needed – on top of skill, consistency and mentality – in a gruelling looking schedule.
 
It’s easy to fall into the sort of smug arrogance that other fans accuse of us of when looking ahead to 2020/21. While Watford and Bournemouth might not appear to be clubs of the stature of Leeds, West Brom or Fulham, we have to face up to the fact that they’ve both been run a lot better than us in recent years and shouldn’t be underestimated – especially not with parachute payments in their back pockets. Some have argued that ‘we’ll never have a better chance’ – but that’s based on judgements of our rivals that are to tricky to make before a ball is kicked and partly on ‘names’. 

Cash to go?

 

There is also, of course, an elephant in the room. A high profile departure is still likely during this window. You have to feel we’ve seen the last of Matty Cash in a Forest shirt and Joe Worrall might also find his way to the Premier League too. Like it or not, the way we’ve seemed to have approached the FFP challenge is to rely on players sales to plug a gap in the finances. We have to hope that a bidding war among top flight clubs can at least ensure we get a fair price for 2019/20’s deserved player of the year. We need a plan in place for how to plug the gaps if they go – and have to hope that we’re not stuck with a long-running and disruptive saga that goes to the last hour of the window.
 
There was – understandably – a lot of doom and gloom when the season ended. It felt like a missed opportunity and another play-off debacle to add to the Sheffield United, Yeovil and Blackpool list. Yet, while the manner of the failure was crushing, the truth was surely that we weren’t quite good enough to go up. Both teams that contested the final seemed a level above us – and we’d have needed an almighty flurry of transfer activity if we’d somehow managed to sneak through. Clearly, it would’ve been better to miss out in the play-offs with pride intact, but let’s not pretend that was a golden chance to go up with a side ready to strut its stuff in the top flight.
 
It’s also worth reflecting on the fact that, despite our understanding of ‘typical Forest’, end of season disasters haven’t always led to problems in the following campaign. We probably fear that a good side will be ‘dismantled’ because the Paul Hart side drifted apart after the Sheffield United play-off collapse. Yet the season after the Yeovil play-off shambles? We were promoted back to the Championship. After the Blackpool humbling? Another play-off campaign. I’m not saying we’ll definitely bounce back strongly next season – but there’s no reason to assume the worst automatically. We’re not ‘cursed’, we just haven’t quite yet been good enough.
 
Sabri’s second season should be a fascinating one. Let’s hope it end up being out-of-the-ordinary because of what’s achieved as much as for how it’s impacted by the pandemic. 

 

 

 

10 reasons why we didn't get promoted

Sunday's 1-0 win marked a slightly tepid end to the season. Perhaps it was a fitting end for a campaign that faded away. Yet the end of the 2018/19 campaign marks the right moment to weigh up the last 46 games.

The excellent Paul Severn has put together a superb summary which right attracted a lot of attention at the weekend. Christian Brown's considered reply demonstrated a fascinating alternative take and, hopefully, that fans are capable of disagreeing politely while still passionately making their case.

Those two takes deliver a big picture assessment so, in a bid not to cover the same ground, I'm going to try to answer the question 'why didn't we get promotion this season?'. I'm not necessarily saying that we should have achieved this, but feel it's worth looking back at the moments and themes that led us to 9th place, eight places and 13 points better off than 2017/18 but still short of achieving the dream.

It took us a while to get going

At the start of the season, Aitor Karanka was still searching for his best line-up. Nowhere is this more evident than the defence - with seven different back fours tried in the first ten league and cup games. The points haul from the first ten league games wasn't bad - better than in both Billy Davies play-off campaigns - but we were definitely still finding our feet in the opening encounters and were 11th after ten fixtures, two places below where we finished.

Grabban's strange season

The £6 million man had a funny first season in Forest colours. As Karanka searched for a winning formula in the early games, Grabban wasn't a guaranteed starter and he took until September 19th to net his first goal. From then until December 1 he went on a scoring spree (barring some penalties that are best not mentioned) and had 15 goals to his name after a brace in a home win against Ipswich. Injuries and the poor form of the team meant that he finished with 17 in total, however, and the side badly missed an on-form fit Grabban after Christmas. If the mid-September-to-December Grabban form had been replicated for the rest of the season, there's a very good chance that this alone could have earned us the extra points needed to squeeze into the play-offs.

Coping with pressure

Is it any wonder that Forest's best performance of the season - the 3-0 mauling of Middlesbrough - came once the chance of making the top six had completely disappeared? The inability to cope with pressure and expectation held the side back throughout. Karanka spoke about this after the League Cup victory over Newcastle, when he suggested his players found it much easier to express themselves against Premier League opponents. He said: "The game today has been, for me, confirmation that the team is not performing well because we are under big pressure." He added: "When we approach a game under pressure we are not ourselves." The inability to cope with the pressure of being favourites continued to dog the squad, including in late season showings away to the likes of Ipswich and Rotherham.

Defensive crisis

We'll never know what Martin O'Neill would have done in January if he'd already had a settled back four to start with. By the end of January, however, we didn't have the use of any of the four centre halves who's started the campaign - with Dawson, Figueiredo and Hefele all injured and Fox sold. Stable, promotion challenging sides shouldn't really be rebuilding the heart of their defence in the middle of the campaign. The incoming players - Yohan Benalouane, Alex Milosevic and Molla Wague - have all done pretty well in fairness but it's a crisis we could've done without and it made it impossible to have a settled side. Dawson's leadership and assured passing were badly missed after his season-ending injury in the December 1 Ipswich win.

We've changed manager again

Yet again we've reached the end of the season with a different manager in the dugout. Aitor Karanka's departure was disappointing and felt unnecessary. We'll never know exactly what went on between the boss and the board, but there was the distinct suggestion that he fell out with the club hierarchy after being put under pressure to deliver more. His departure seemed inevitable by the end and the dragged out nature of his demise didn't help matters. With Martin O'Neill in the dugout we were back to the 'experimentation stage' of the first ten games with some decidedly mixed results. You felt that if - and it's a big if - we were going to succeed this season we needed to stick to the Karanka 4-2-3-1 blueprint and have a coherent style and strategy. Some fans are less keen on O'Neill than others, but the fact is that he ended the campaign in ninth, exactly where we were when he took over. He probably needed a miracle to win promotion and fell some way short of that. The football played under him was poor at times and there's definite room for improvement there. My personal view is that the destabilising effect of a change was costlier than anything else and we've got to break the cycle of change at some point. Others clearly believe the choice of replacement was a reason in its own right. Whichever side you're on, the management situation clearly contributed.

Trying to 'force it' in games

Aitor Karanka's aim was supposed to be to deliver promotion by the end of his contract (ie next summer) yet it's clear that the club wanted to push to deliver this ambition quicker. I can't help but feeling that the pressure to deliver immediate results forced both managers into some oddly gung ho substitutions to try to force results. The QPR home game stood out for this and I do wonder if a crazy push for goals is what caused Karanka to send Gil Dias on to try to see out the game at Carrow Road when more sensible options were available to him. At Ipswich, O'Neill threw forwards onto the pitch despite the fact we didn't have control of the ball to create chances for them.

The Carvalho conundrum

At the start of the season it was clear that the club could field an XI that would be an improvement on the previous campaign - just not by how much. Much was made of the club's £25 million splurge - and we quickly grew tired of the 'big spending Nottingham Forest' tag - but, in truth, most of the investment went on two people, Lewis Grabban and Joao Carvalho. The 22-year-old Portuguese playmaker has lit up the last few games his vision, passing and trickery, yet it hasn't been plain sailing. The rigours of the Championship presented a physical and mental test for the £13 million man and he was showing signs of needing a rest by Christmas. However, he's actually done better with the physical side of the game than I thought he would and has shown a strong work ethic too. Martin O'Neill took a while to find a role for Carvalho and without him our play was too unimaginative, becoming too heavily reliant on Joe Lolley. Whether the manager liked it or not, we'd put much of the focus on Carvalho by investing so heavily in him and we had little option but to turn to him for some magic on the ball. Carvalho will be better for the experience of this season - but you feel we need to find a little more creativity elsewhere too. It's too simplistic to say that we'd have definitely won more games with Carvalho in the side, but it's apparent that we're already overly-reliant on him to be able to play good football.

The misfiring cavalry

While Grabban, Carvalho and Lolley make for an impressive attacking triumvirate it's fair to say that things didn't pan out that well for the men meant to supplement that firepower. Gil Dias flattered to deceive - and blotted his copybook with a disastrous sub-showing at Norwich. Diogo Goncalves struggled with the physical test of the Championship while Hilal Soudani - a useful 'supersub' early on - had his season curtailed by injury. Karim Ansarifard showed glimpses of getting to grips with the demands of playing up front in the Championship towards the end of the season, but couldn't quite fill a Grabban-shaped hole in the team and left us turning to Daryl Murphy all-too-often. The loan signing of Leo Bonatini promised much and delivered little too. The likes of Norwich rescued results wit strong comebacks - our misfiring cavalry made those rousing finishes tougher to muster.

Ill discipline

We might have finished 9th overall but we finished rock bottom of the division's fair play league. Jack Colback's 15 yellow cards and Jack Robinson's 11 contributed more than their fair share of the team's 102 bookings (57 more than Swansea) and both players suffered damaging suspensions. I don't think we're necessarily a dirty team, but cutting out the cards would certainly be a big help next season.

The nature of the league

Spending £25 million alone was no guarantee of success and that's partly due to the harsh reality of the Championship these days. A collection of big clubs with big parachute payments - and smaller well-run ones with a smart plan - mean that it'll take more than one summer spree to help us stand out from a crowded field of contenders. I'm not sure I was ever confident that there weren't more than six better teams in the division.


Right, well, that's my two penneth. What do you reckon? Do you agree that these ten factors held us back in 2018/19?

The Forest Player of the Season 'curse' and the future for Ben Osborn

I'm worried for Ben Osborn. No, not because of the Twitter trolls. Those fans should, by rights, have been silenced by his fully deserved - and fan-voted - Player of the Season award. The sometimes-silent majority have spoken and Ben should take heart from the fact that we do truly appreciate his efforts during a chaotic period at the club.

🏆 @OsbornOn1 has been crowned as #NFFC’s Player of the Season after winning the majority of the fans’ vote.#ThatLovingFeeling https://t.co/AO1vQIrgcd

— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) May 5, 2018

My concern is that the Player of the Season award at Forest is becoming a little like the Manager of the Month crown or the board's 'vote of confidence'.

That bad? Here's what happened next to the last 11 winners of the award:

2007: Grant Holt

After bagging 18 goals in the 2006/07 play-off push, Holt seemed to fall out with manager Colin Calderwood and was shunted out on to the wing where he, perhaps predictability, failed to flourish. He netted just three times and was loaned out in March 2008 before being sold in the June.

2008: Julian Bennett

Bennett had been an inspiration during the successful League One promotion campaign - culminating in 'that goal' against Yeovil - so it was a huge blow to lose him to injury after just four games in the following season. When he did come back he suffered a collarbone injury that kept him out for six weeks and then eventually succumbed to a knee injury on Boxing Day that ended his season.

2009: Chris Cohen

The recently-retired Cohen wasn't struck by the 'curse' in 2009/10 - although play-off heartache was to come at the end of the season. Chris' bad luck was to follow later.

2010: Lee Camp

Again, Camp thrived after winning his Player of the Season title. He kept 12 clean sheets and narrowly missed out on becoming the first player to retain the title, finishing second to Luke Chambers.

2011 Luke Chambers

Chambers was appointed captain by new boss Steve McClaren but failed to hit the heights of the previous campaign. He scored no goals - compared to six the season before - and, along with the whole team, struggled for form. Eventually left at the end of the season.

2012 Garath McCleary

Having been a key factor in saving us from relegation under Steve Cotterill - scoring nine goals in the process - Garath left for Reading in the summer.

2013 Chris Cohen

Cohen suffered the second major injury of his career in November 2013, ruling him out for the rest of the season.

2014 Andy Reid

A ten-goal campaign earned him his second Player of the Season crown - ten years after the first. Reid and Cohen had then formed a promising midfield combination during a superb start under Stuart Pearce before both were injured in the same game - at home to Derby in September 2014. Reid wasn't seen again for nearly a year after.

2015 Michail Antonio

Michail's 15 goals and 12 assists were a joy to watch in 2014/15 (I'd put him in my best post-Premier League XI as a result) but he left to join West Ham by the end of the subsequent summer transfer window.

2016 Dorus De Vries

The former Wolves stopper played just one game of the 2016/17 season, leaving to join Celtic. His experience and calming influence have been missed since.

2017 Eric Lichaj

The popular American international only made half as many appearances in 2017/18. Despite memorable moments - such as a stunning goal against Arsenal - he twice found himself behind Tendayi Darikwa in the pecking order.

So, that's three major injuries, three immediate departures and three - to a greater or lesser extent - losses of form for those winners.

It's probably a reflection of the club's chronic inability to find any real form of stability in recent years. Players who are key one season have either been sold, replaced or misused, meaning we've rarely had a solid, consistent core that has worked together for a few seasons to become a coherent and successful team.

The future for Ben Osborn

Will the same fate befall Ben Osborn? It's hard to say. In some respects - and this isn't meant as harshly as it sounds - he won this season's crown by default. There were very few other players to feature in both the Warburton and Karanka sides. That is, of course, testament to his hard work and talent (he's impressed far too many managers to be dismissed now) but also reflects his versatility.

As the below Tweet shows, Ben has found himself in no less than seven positions during the course of the season.

Player of the season
Ben Osborn. pic.twitter.com/23VJMiPFlT

— Grant (@Grantnffc1) April 30, 2018

His flexibility makes him a great squad player and perhaps it's fitting that he takes the crown at the same time as Chris Cohen - a man who filled a similar number of positions in his time - bows out.

However, he'll be acutely aware of the fact that the manager is surely about to embark on another shopping spree. The additions from the January window and those to come in the summer might well mean that we have new recruits to fill all of those seven positions that Ben has filled.

Ben Osborn isn't a player to shirk a challenge. New managers, new positions, new playing styles and tactics, Twitter trolls, relegation battles, off field chaos - he's seen it all in his time in the Garibaldi. The Player of the Season crown is a fitting reminder that he has overcome all of that to earn and keep a place in the side. In light of the lack of a consistent, experienced backbone, the likes of Osborn have been the heart of the club and he's been the poster boy for the Academy core that has kept us afloat. Yes, he isn't perfect but lesser players would have wilted.

The next challenge - to forge a role in a Karanka side that has to challenge for the top six - might be the toughest yet. If he can do that, he'll need to defy the gloomy history for recent Player of the Season winners too. Over to you, Ben.

'Only' pride to play for? Rubbish

In football, it's often said that there's 'only pride left to play for'. That cliché has certainly been applied to Forest ever since relegation was mathematically impossible (and before for some brave souls).

Yet that cliché is rubbish for two reasons. Firstly, 'only pride' implies that pride alone is a poor reward. That completely ignores the fact that, outside of the rarified world of the Champions League superpower clubs, wins are not exactly a throwaway joy that happen every week. I certainly haven't become blasé about Forest winning matches and every victory is worth cherishing. On top of that, every game matters from the perspective of the individuals on the pitch - their personal stories, milestones and careers - as well as those in the stands. Every match is someone's first, someone's 'one for the season', someone's 'big game' because of a personal rivalry or just their escape from the humdrum of work. If people are being paid to play and people are paying to watch then of course it matters and there's also a sense of professionalism and duty in carrying on when others in the table continue to fight out the promotion and relegation races.

Ben Brereton prepares to finally end a club record goal scoring drought with a penalty against Ipswich Town.

Secondly, and importantly in the context of Forest's current ambitions, seasons don't happen in a vacuum. The way you finish one season can set the tone for the start of the next. You may be thinking that there are 'two games left to the end of the season' but Aitor Karanka is more likely to be thinking that he's got 20-25 games to whip us into shape so that we're challenging at the top end of the table come Christmas. That may seem ridiculous, but you can't ignore the fact that the owners will want to see drastic progress on the pitch next season and - rightly or wrongly - will expect a promotion challenge at least. In the grand scheme of things, there aren't a huge amount of games to transform us from bottom third strugglers to top third challengers and there's no time to lose in doing the work required to get there.

In that respect, this end of season spell should prove invaluable for the Spaniard. He's had a long time to assess the relative merits of both the existing playing staff and his first batch of new signings. These games should have given him chance to think about how he wants to play and who fits into his plans and where.

If that is the case then it will mark a big change from previous seasons. The five years of Fawaz all saw seasons fizzle out at the end - all with different managers in charge from the men who sent out a side on the opening day.

I wrote two years ago about the end of campaign flops for Seat Pitch. To update the list, we've now seen:

• 2012/13: One win and four draws in the last eight games as Billy Davies' initial run of one draw and six wins came to a crashing halt.
• 2013/14: Two wins in the last 16 games as Billy was sacked and Gary Brazil was left holding the baby for the incoming Stuart Pearce.
• 2014/15: No wins in the last eight games as Dougie Freedman's honeymoon period fizzled out.
• 2015/16: Three wins, and just 12 goals, in the last 15 games as the Freedman reign ended and Paul Williams stepped in.
• 2016/17: Four wins - and nine defeats - in the last 16 games as we left it until a nail-biting last day of the season to stay up on goal difference.
• 2017/18: Four wins from the last 16 games as we've limped past last season's points total with two games to spare.

Yet the stats only tell part of the story. It's not just the poor results that have been disappointing in these end-of-season slumps, it's been the fact that much of this time has been wasted. The club has been all-too-happy to let things drift and wait to press the reset button yet again, often going through the motions while fielding loanees that stand no chance of returning.

The challenge for the current ownership and management is to shake us out of the current cycle of underperformance. By making the games at the end of this season count - in that we can take away some useful lessons for next season - we can make a start towards the overall goal. 

The fact that Karanka will still want to make drastic changes to his playing staff is pretty clear. However, the more changes required, the harder it will be to knit it all together. You'd like to think that he's established a few of the building blocks for his side. If Ben Watson's leadership, Liam Bridcutt's dynamism, Joe Lolley's mazy wing play, Matty Cash's boundless energy and Tobias Figueiredo's solid defending all feed into the team next season then it'll be easier to hit the ground running. The whole squad will be used to his shape and tactics by now too.

Beating Barnsley 3-0 on a wet Tuesday night at the City Ground.

Plus, if we can avoid having to sign squad players and back-up options then we can save the precious transfer kitty for strikers and expensive creative players. The owners have shown every intention of wanting to spend money in the summer, but the high price commanded by top strikers will mean that we still need to be wary of the dreaded FFP rules. Karanka should know exactly who he can utilise and where by now.

On the flip side, Karanka should have also seen enough to avoid sentimentally hanging on to players who need to be moved on. Michael Mancienne, for example, probably exemplifies the mediocrity that the club needs to move on from. Mark Warburton's failure to fix a defence that was so obviously leaky was a costly error (although perhaps he was preoccupied with filling the goalscoring void left by the departing Assombalonga?). 

So, against Bristol City and Bolton - just as in the 3-0 win against Barnsley - there's both pride to play for and the medium to long term future. There's no 'only' about either of those things and by taking both factors as motivation we can hopefully sow the seeds to avoid a seventh successive slump at the end of next season.

Chatting about the ups and downs of being a Forest fan

What's it like being a Forest fan? I don't know about you but fans of other clubs do occasionally try to find out more about the strange comings and goings at the City Ground. It might be out of intrigue, sympathy, politeness, morbid curiosity or, probably, all of the above.

Still, it's difficult to explain isn't it? I struggle to understand what's going on most of the time - part disaster film, part soap opera, occasional sporting contest - let alone explain it to others.

However, I've attempted to do just that in an interview with my friend and former colleague John Baker. John is one of a couple of long-suffering Coventry City fans that I know and, to be honest, their struggles do often offer a healthy sense of perspective for matters on Trentside. I think most fans are hoping that SISU can clear off and let the Sky Blues go back to being a properly functioning club again, preferably before leaving them homeless.

In the first part of our chat we discuss what it was like being a Forest fan 20 years ago, what is the best Forest fans could ever hope for and whether I'd rather see Forest in the Premier League or England win the World Cup (and a grim Megson away day in Milton Keynes):



In part two we chat over the lowest I've ever felt at a game, players and clubs I dislike, the pros and cons of Twitter and the nearly-but-not-quite Gareth Bale loan.



In part three I try to sum up Cloughie (senior and junior), Collymore, Savage and a few more characters in one word, ponder what it would be like to be a fan of a Premier League giant and crap football memorabilia.




Hopefully I didn't completely mess up 'going into bat' for Forest fans - it was certainly fun to go through a few old memories and, of course, to dig out the well worn 2002/03 shirt (which has Reid 20 on the back).

John is hoping to speak to fans from all sorts of different clubs to tap into their hopes, fears and memories. You can check out his YouTube channel here (his rant at Arsenal fans certainly attracted some 'interesting' responses).

Karanka needs ruthlessness and results

Never mind words, we're starting to see what the Marinakis regime will be like in practice. The sacking of Mark Warburton after a month of poor form with the team in 14th was followed by the sanctioning of ten new signings in the January transfer window. The team, you feel, now needs to show the sort of ruthlessness on the pitch that the club has shown off it.

That certainly wasn't the case in Saturday's horror show against Hull. The 2-0 defeat to the previously-toothless Tigers left open the very real threat of a relegation battle. The last ten games have now yielded a pitiful five points - repeat that in the next ten and there's no doubt that we'll be in a mess.

It was baffling - but so very Forest - that we'd signed so many new players and were still watching the same old rubbish, not least at the back. Every new manager comes into the club and learns the hard way that Danny Fox can no longer cope at left back, it seems, while we merely have to be subjected to the same painful lessons as they play out in front of us. Michael Mancienne isn't a player I particularly rate but, my position notwithstanding, he is clearly woefully out of form and ill-suited to the role of captain. After Hull's first goal you could see several of their players geeing each other up but there were no such signs of encouragement on our side, from the captain or anyone else. Joe Worrall, too, is a young player who looks like he might need some time out of the firing line to fine tune a few things, with a worrying tendency to make mistakes creeping into his game.

In fairness to the defence, it can hardly have been easy for them. From Freedman's emphasis on defensive solidity to the gung-ho days of Philippe Montanier and the short passing mantra of Mark Warburton, these players have borne the brunt of dramatic changes in style in recent seasons. Now again, half way through a season, we're expecting them to adapt to another manager and yet another way of playing.

It'd perhaps be impatient to expect all of the new signings to be match fit and ready to go, but it did still feel odd not to see more of them against Hull. Karanka and the board were clearly concerned enough by the quality of the squad to make drastic changes in January, but the team selection didn't seem to reflect this. I can't help thinking that the introduction of Ben Watson or Lee Tomlin, for example, might have helped to signal the change in mentality and attitude that we badly need. As Karanka himself said, when Hull's goal went in we were a beaten side. The fact that that goal came after nine minutes - and that Hull are a poor side - said everything you need to know about Forest's lack of confidence and poor powers of recovery.

Whether the selection was wrong or not, however, Saturday's game was worrying. Managing one shot on target all game (it's now only five on target in our last three and no goals at home in the last five) showed a lack of fight. Had we bombarded the opposition's goal in the second half and lost 2-1, say, we might at least have had something to cling to. The team also looked a mess. What exactly was the plan going forward? Who was going to score the goals we needed? Out of form top scorer Kieran Dowell did not look at home on the left. Under Warburton, the criticism was that we lacked a plan B to change games when we were losing. On Saturday we didn't appear to have even a plan A.

Aitor Karanka has a big job on his hands to turn this around. He has the pedigree to suggest he can do the job - and he's been backed in the transfer market too. We have to hope that, given time, Karanka's ideas and his new personnel can deliver the results needed to avoid getting sucked into a basement battle. The January window certainly saw players come in in a greater volume and quality than seen in previous years.

It could be argued, of course, that signing ten new players is, in itself, an alarming sign. No club should need quite such drastic surgery mid way through a season, certainly not if things are going well. However, the signing spree did see us snap some quality players several of which - Ben Watson, Joe Lolley, Jack Colback - have experience of promotion to the Premier League. On face value, the glut of midfield additions flies in the face of the fact that we can't currently score goals and we're shipping them at an alarming rate at the other end of the pitch. Midfield changes can, of course, screen the back four better and help to create more chances and it has to be hoped that Karanka can find a formula that does both of those things. He'll have to be ruthless - that word again - and that might mean leaving out talented academy graduates, an out of form Dowell, some of his own new signings or even a combination of all three.

We've often argued that a manager will need two or three transfer windows to truly shape his squad. Maybe the owners have heard this and sought to deliver two or three windows worth of signings for Karanka in one go? I certainly think they'll be expecting to see some results between now and the end of the season. Rightly or wrongly, does anyone think they'll be happy to hobble on, scrape 15/16 points and limp to safety? I actually think they believed that switching Warburton for Karanka left open the outside chance of a play-off push. If that was the case, we're all seeing how deluded that was now.

While you'd like to think it's not a case of 'top six or out' this season for Karanka, I still fear he'll need to show real signs of progress if he's to continue going forward. If that sounds daft, it's because football is daft. The owners want a promotion challenge next season, that much is now clear.

The immediate priority is, however, to stop the rot. Games against Hull, Burton, Reading and QPR had looked like an opportunity to pick up some points - now they look like games that could drag us into the dogfight if we're not careful. With ten new players in the bag, it'll take Karanka a long time before he knows his best 11 but he needs to find a formation and combination to work from; one that can tough out the odd draw. Burton might well be bad at home, but Hull were in horrible form away too and no-one should be in any doubt of Forest's magical ability to breathe life into an out-of-form opposition.

A history of failure: Nottingham Forest and the January transfer window

The January transfer window is rubbish isn't it? It's full of pompous Premier League clubs and their telephone number transfer fees, dull and never ending 'sagas' involving spoiled and sulking superstars, 'Sky Sources' and Twitter timelines full of desperately unfunny try-hards.

Yet, on top of that, there's the fact that we're just plain rubbish at it. Time and time again, Forest have failed to secure the players they need, with the club more often than not finding itself torn between transfer strategies or in the midst of managerial turmoil at this time of year.

Indeed, arguably, we're here again. Having just sacked Mark Warburton, lost director of football Frank McParland and appointed Aitor Karanka, we're playing catch up. I'm hopeful that Karanka has just enough time - and the backing - to sneak one or two in the door in the next week or two but I'm not getting carried away.

So, while we patiently wait to see if Karanka can have any success, here's a sobering look at the last ten Januarys and our transfer activity (or lack thereof) to serve as a reminder/warning/therapy:

2006/07

Transfers in: Luke Chambers

Loans in: David Prutton

Transfers out: Neil Harris, Ross Gardner, Nicky Southall, Danny Cullip

Loans out: Nicky Eaden

Verdict: I remember being completely baffled by the departure of Nicky Southall. With 35 games in all competitions and seven goals to his name, we surely wouldn't just let him leave to Gillingham on a free without lining up a replacement, right? Wrong. The move unnecessarily weakened the squad - with the later loan of James Henry failing to fill his shoes - as we headed for a play-off disaster. Prutton's return was tarnished by his red card in that play-off defeat to Yeovil.

2007/08

Transfers in: Garath McCleary
Transfers out: Scott Dobie, Neil Lennon

Verdict: No-one was sad to see either Scott Dobie or Neil Lennon depart from the City Ground but the raw talent of Garath McCleary - plucked from non-league Bromley - wasn't the injection of talent we needed for a promotion push. Luckily Brett Ormerod's later loan move would give us some impetus and help us to force our way to second.

2008/09

Verdict: There was no transfer movement in the January of 2009. Billy Davies had just been appointed and dipped into the loan market in March, with the likes of Chris Gunter and Dexter Blackstock helping the Scot's successful survival bid. Still, the lack of January additions left the risk of relegation hanging over us.

2009/10

Transfers out: Arron Davies
Loans out: Matt Thornhill, Brendan Moloney

Verdict: Loanee Nick Shorey returned to parent club Aston Villa at the end of January, with no permanent additions made to Billy Davies' play-off bound side. It felt like a missed opportunity - and a situation that wasn't helped when George Boyd later arrived on loan despite apparently not being wanted by Davies.

2010/11

Transfers in: Marcus Tudgay
Loans in: Paul Konchesky
Transfers out: Matt Thornhill
Loans out: Joe Garner

Verdict: Marcus Tudgay had earned his permanent move after helping us to smash the Sheep 5-2 but the arrival of the Sheffield Wednesday striker and another left back loanee in Paul Konchesky wasn't enough to help Davies' side go beyond the play offs.

2011/12

Transfers in: Marlon Harewood
Loans in: Adlene Guedioura, Danny Higginbotham, Scott Wootton
Transfers out: Wes Morgan, Patrick Bamford
Loans out: Kieron Freeman

Verdict: This was a transfer window tinged with sadness. Club stalwart Wes Morgan and up and coming star Patrick Bamford were sacrificed to help fund the signings needed to secure short term survival as a new owner was sought. We'd gone from needing to find the missing piece of the puzzle 12 months earlier to being desperate for fresh legs to stay up after the ill-fated Steve McClaren expermined. Still, events of the January window were put into perspective  by the tragic death of Nigel Doughty in February.

2012/13

Transfers in: Stephen McLaughlin, Khaled Al Rashidi, Darius Henderson
Loans in: Gonzalo Jara, Elliott Ward (extension to previous loan)
Transfers out: Robbie Findley, Lee Camp, Brendan Moloney
Loans out: Karl Darlow, David McGoldrick, Matt Derbyshire

Verdict: Alex McLeish had been drafted in just before the January window opened - and didn't last long once it had shut. This window is infamous for didn't happen rather than what did - with the farcical failure to complete the capture of George Boyd at the eleventh hour apparently put down to a failed eye test. Little did we know but it was to set the tone for the 'Fawaz era'.

2013/14

Transfers in: Rafik Djebbour, Jack Hobbs
Loans in: Danny Fox, Kevin Gomis, David Vaughan (extension to previous loan)
Transfers out: Khaled Al Rashidi
Loans out: Ishmael Miller

Verdict: Billy Davies was back with 'unfinished business' but I'm not sure Rafik Djebbour or Kevin Gomis were top of his list of targets. The club was bullied into paying a transfer fee for an unfit Jack Hobbs by Hull and, amazingly, Khaled Al Rashidi drifted off the books without making an impact in 12 months. Billy was heading for a meltdown - and the sack - by the end of March.

2014/15

Loans in: Todd Kane, Gary Gardner
Loans out: Dan Harding, Louis Lang

Verdict: Fawaz's free-spending finally came back to bite, landing us with a transfer embargo before the 2015 January window opened. Stuart Pearce, having spent a decent amount of money in the summer, was restricted to the loan captures of Todd Kane and Gary Gardner as he struggled to regain his early season momentum. Gardner, at least, was an excellent addition.

2015/16

Loans in: Bojan Jokic, Gary Gardner

Verdict: Embargo still in place, Dougie Freedman went down a well-trodden path - taking a left back on loan and returning to Villa for Gary Gardner. Sadly, Gardner could never quite live up to the promise of his first spell and Freedman was soon sacked despite never having the chance to operate outside of a transfer embargo.

2016/17

Transfers in: Zach Clough, Gboly Ariyibi
Loans in: Aaron Tshibola, Joao Teixeira, Ross McCormack
Transfers out: Henri Lansbury
Loans out: Tyler Walker, Jorge Grant

Verdict: With an American takeover shelved and Gary Brazil installed on January 14 until the end of the season, this window was Fawaz's final folly. Tshibola and McCormack were unfit, Teixeira was never even seen - making it baffling that we'd bothered to break him out of a season long loan to Wolves -  and Ariyibi is still yet to be used. Clough burst into the team amid high hopes, but his form and fitness faded and he has struggled to get back into the side this season (risking becoming another Jamie Paterson).



In some respects just looking through the January windows says a lot about the club in the last decade or so. From a struggle to find the missing pieces of the promotion puzzle, through to the 'quantity not quality' profligacy under Fawaz and the subsequent embargo it caused, these windows show a club that has drifted along with little sense of strategy.

In this context, we shouldn't expect too much this January. A quality central defender would be top of my list (preferably someone who can act as a leader) and if that's all we can get it'd be better than some of the disastrous Januarys we've seen in previous years. The long term aim for the club should be to avoid a similar series of disappointments and disasters from now on. Perhaps then we could learn not to dread this wretched month.

Over to you, Aitor Karanka

How was it for you? The annual spin on the managerial merry-go-round comes round with as much certainty as a Goose Fair ride these days, this time leading to Aitor Karanka taking Mark Warburton's place in the City Ground hotseat.



I'd made it clear that I thought Mark Warburton deserved more time to complete the work he'd started, but that wasn't to be. We'll probably never know exactly what caused the club to part company with the former Brentford man. Was it a fallout over transfer targets, concerns over the playing style and team selection, the poor form in recent games, the fact that we were too far off the play offs or a combination of the above? Yet the fact he was given the push after the defeat to Sunderland - and the identity of the man who has replaced him - might well tell us a lot about what the owners are thinking.

I wrote in my last post about Nicholas Randall's open letter to the fans in the summer yet it felt like axing Warburton - described as the 'perfect fit' for the club - marked a change of approach from that vision. Or, at the very least, it brought into question the talk of the precious commodity of time and the need to be realistic in our ambitions as the club emerged from intensive care.

While I think it'd be wrong to state that no progress was made under Warburton, there was clearly a debate as to how much progress we were making under him. The answer to that question really depends on your expectations. The fact that Warburton has joined the long list of ex Nottingham Forest managers (imagine a meeting of that disparate group? What would Joe Kinnear and Billy Davies talk about?!) suggests that the new ownership wants promotion a lot quicker than I first thought.

Personally, I think it'd be crazy to expect Karanka to pull off an unlikely push at the top six this season (surely a dangerous overestimation of the quality of the squad) but I sense the regime would be disappointed not to see the club among the challengers this time next year. The former Boro boss has half of this transfer window and the summer to take the foundations laid by Warburton (and the academy) and build a challenge. It's a big ask, but it is one he managed in similar circumstances in the North East, where he took his charges to the play-off final in his first full campaign.

If the club has shown itself to be ambitious - and ruthless - in making this move, the fact that the hierarchy was able to persuade Karanka to come to Nottingham is impressive. The Spaniard is said to have turned down a number of opportunities to return to football management since he departed the Riverside. Indeed, it's thought Birmingham failed to offer the resources and assurances needed to secure his signature. Given that he's a man who has bided his time, you'd like to hope that the club must've presented an attractive and ambitious vision to attract him. Neither he nor his backroom team have been shy about talking of promotion upon arrival at the club. It'll certainly be interesting to see what sort of budget he has available given that the FFP constraints still make their presence felt.

Just arrived in Nottingham, can’t wait to get started! #NFFC pic.twitter.com/NTHn2MiwZn

— Aitor Karanka (@Karanka) January 9, 2018

In many respects, Karanka seems an ideal appointment. It avoided the head vs heart sentimentality of signing up an ex player and sidestepped the risk of an unknown manager (although I'd be open to snapping up a lower league manager on the up personally). If the Greeks - or anyone else for that matter - care about these things, he's a Champions League winning player in his Real Madrid days with a pedigree that deserves respect. As a coach, he's young and fresh while, at the same time, has invaluable experience with Middlesbrough and a promotion on his CV. He's certainly a lot less polarising than many of the names on the bookies' list and seems to still attract affection from many Boro fans. You'd also like to think he'll only tweak the style and shape Warburton favoured, avoiding the need for a long and expensive tactical overhaul.

Of course, he isn't perfect. There remains a question mark about his falling out with the Boro hierarchy for starters. Yet the other major criticism - that he was overly defensive - seems churlish. Firstly, we're desperate for defensive solidity after a season and a half of leaking goals far too readily. Secondly, this suggestion applies most clearly to the caution Boro' demonstrated in the top flight, where they failed to score enough goals to retain their Premier League status. Frankly, we're a long way off the luxury of worrying about that.

We have to hope that Karanka is smart enough to be able to quickly weigh up what's he's inherited. The Arsenal game - still scarcely believable - demonstrated the breadth of young talent coming through the ranks. These players need to be nurtured, not replaced with journeymen signings - something that short termist thinking has caused in the past. The need for greater strength and quality, especially in defence, should hopefully also be apparent as the clock ticks away on the January window. No-one wants to see a repeat of the shambles of last January's transfer window (has anyone found Joao Teixeira yet?).

Those journalists with close contact to the new regime have certainly argued that the Warburton era will end up being written off as a false start for the Marinakis era and, with hindsight, will prove the right move. Without evidence to the contrary myself I'm keen to retain an open - and sceptical - mind. I like the look of Karanka, but I've learned not to get too attached to managers over recent years. You never can quite tell if a boss will be able to replicate their success in another club either. Gary Megson, now rightly maligned by Forest fans, arrived having done a job at West Brom that we'd have loved him to repeat on Trentside. It'd be wholly unfair to tar anyone, least alone a brand new manager, with the Megson brush, but his memory serves as a warning not to get too carried away.

Still, I am happy that we've recruited a good manager. That's only part of the puzzle but it is a big one. The next step should be to appoint a Director of Football to replace Frank McParland. It would certainly be a lot healthier if the person filling this berth isn't as closely linked to the man in the dugout this time.

Aitor Karanka seems clear about the challenge and the expectation ahead. He now needs the support to deliver. I don't know about you, but I'd quite like it if the merry-go-round ended its annual visit to the City Ground from now on.

Still on the road to recovery from intensive care

Intensive care. I can't help but keep thinking back to those two carefully chosen words, offered up by incoming Forest chairman Nicholas Randall to describe the club he was coming to.

In fact, the QC's open letter to fans in June is probably the most important document issued by the club in years. Reading it back now, halfway into the new regime's first season, the whole of this passage also stood out:

"Although we believe in aiming high, we also need to be realistic. The league table does not lie and, whether we like it or not, the club only just escaped relegation this season. To use the medical analogy the club is in intensive care. It is our job to ensure that we nurse the club back to health. It is rare in life for anything of value to come easily. So although we are all excited about the prospects for the club, we must make sure that each step taken is based on strong foundations. Furthermore, as with any journey in life, there will be mistakes made and some setbacks are also inevitable. We will no doubt stumble and occasionally fall, but we promise you that we will keep getting up again until the job is done."

This paragraph is pretty much the prism through which the whole season can be viewed and accurately outlines some of what we've seen since.

So, how are we getting on? Well, while Randall has been quiet since, you'd assume he'd have a slightly sunnier outlook for the club's medical condition.

Off the field, we feel like a proper club again. The commercial and marketing team has worked well, with smart offers and effective communication playing their part in helping to fill the City Ground. The efforts to reach out to fans and the community are also important and noteworthy. The change has been marked - and we've seen pretty much everything we called for in the chaotic mess of the Fawaz era be introduced by way of structure. The foundations Randall mentions have certainly been laid - we have to hope that they prove themselves to be strong when tested.

Am I wrong to still be a little worried about the allegations that persist around Evangelos Marinakis?  Clearly he should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, but there's a nagging concern that it isn't good for the club for him to be under question.

Yet off the field matters are, thankfully after the last couple of years, not primarily the cause of debate.

Results and points have, for me at least, been largely positive. After 24 games of last season we were five places lower in the table and five points worse off. In the calendar year to date, our league results read: P46 W17 D5 L24. Replicate that across 2016/17 and we'd finish with 56 points and in last season's table that would have been enough to finish 16th - again five points and five places better off. Given the steady downward trend under Fawaz, that's not to be sniffed at (and 16th in this division is our average league position this century).

Of course, football isn't about stats alone. Look beyond the numbers and it's fair to say that the team has shown flashes of real style. The QPR game was a joy to watch and, when it clicks, the larger City Ground crowds are treated to some exciting passing football - the sort of play we've often yearned for while under 'pragmatic' bosses such as Megson or Freedman.

Most of the signings made have been positive too. Instead of splurging money on the likes of Nicklas Bendtner, we've invested in younger, hungrier players with the capacity to improve (with the exception of the smart signing of Daryl Murphy to part-fill the Assombalonga void).

We've also continued to promote our academy stars. In some respects, the team has the feel of the early days of Paul Hart and we have to hope it bears similar results as the young players learn how to succeed in the tough environment of the Championship.

Yet, you'd be foolish to suggest everything that we've seen has been positive. The team loses far too many games and is, undoubtedly, in the midst of a sticky patch. Both within individual games - and within the season - they need to show the strength of character to get themselves out of a hole.

In many games, the team can fall flat - with matches such as Cardiff and Sheffield Wednesday at home petering out into tame defeats. The first goal is too significant, confidence a fragile commodity and ruthlessness lacking. All are predictable with a young side but all need work going forward.

The defence - and the protection is receives - is also a concern. We're on course to ship even more goals than last season's 72 at the current rate (one stat that doesn't point to progress). Conceding that many goals is always likely to undermine whatever you're doing at the other end. The biggest failure in the summer was the inability to significantly strengthen in this weak area. Mark Warburton and Frank McParland had seen what we were like last term and ought really to have acted. Of course they may have been outbid by some of the freer spending members of the division (the likes of Birmingham perhaps) and they may have been constrained by the still-significant straitjacket of FFP, but it'd be nice to see a defensive reinforcement or two come through the door in the next month.

It also feels like there's perhaps a lack of leadership on the field, with captain Michael Mancienne seemingly not the figure we need to rally the troops. I appreciate that not every side can have a Stuart Pearce but a stronger leader, in whichever mould, would be welcome.

Yet, while it's fair to raise these concerns I do feel that these are all 'growing pains' associated with the work needed to bring the club out of intensive care. These are the mistakes, setbacks and stumbles that Randall predicted. I personally feel we've shown enough potential and progress to suggest that these things can be overcome in time. Anyone who expected a top six challenge this season must have been smoking something potent.

But you only need to go on Twitter after a game to see that there are some who don't feel this way. Sadly, some of the level of debate after a game is childish. There are those who, whether they'd admit it or not, appear to wish they had Fawaz back. That way they could have their public mardy and be heard again. Maybe they became addicted to the knee-jerk soap opera off the field and miss their fix of drama? Opposition fans must read some of the posts and laugh.

There are clearly some who don't like Mark Warburton. I feel that might partly be down to his character. He's not a charismatic talker in press conferences and, for some it seems, that matters. If he could joke, bluff or divert his way through an interview in the style of a Holloway or Warnock you feel some might be placated. Most managers spout the odd bit of rubbish, but those who do it with a twinkle in the eye or through a catchy soundbite seem to get away with it more. As it is, people hang on Warburton's every word and become unusually irritated by the odd bit of jargon or management speak.

There are those who feel the style of play is foolish too. I feel he's certainly chosen a brave way to play - and definitely not the easiest path to success - but the potential for exciting, dynamic, stylish football is there. Get better at it - as Warburton's Brentford did - and we could be on to something special. As Randall put it: "It's rare in life for anything of value to come easily."

It's also worth bearing in mind the esteem with which the manager is held by the ownership. Randall's letter explicitly stated that the regime wanted to encourage a passing game and praised the manager for his work to move towards this. It promised him time and stressed: "We believe that in Mark Warburton we have not just a good fit but the perfect fit for the role of manager of the club."

If Warburton were to leave - something which is hopefully fanciful in the current moment - you feel that the regime would want another manager like him. The style of play and approach to transfers is here to stay, regardless of the man in the dugout. The FFP question still looms too - with the club clearly wanting to unearth bargain players who can grow in stature and, in turn, value. A chequebook manager wouldn't fit the bill here in the post-Fawaz era.

Much has improved since the 'intensive care' letter. We have, for me at least, shown a decent level of progress out of the ashes of a relegation battle and the sale of a star striker. But, you don't step straight out of intensive care and start running a marathon. The road to recovery is going to require more hard work and more patience.

Frustration as Forest suffer St Andrew's setback

In retrospect, one of the very first moments of Saturday's match at St Andrew's was highly significant. With barely a minute on the clock, the Blues' robust and hard working midfielder Maikel Kieftenbeld committed a foul on Tendayi Darikwa. Whether it was intended to lay down a marker or not, it did. Birmingham were physical, hard working and disciplined, we huffed and puffed but found all three traits tough to overcome.

This fledgling Forest side has a habit of starting sluggishly. We'd even had to overcome a ropey opening before steamrollering QPR last time out. On Saturday we were unable to settle before a Che Adams strike from a tight angle handed the advantage to the home side. It was an advantage we were never able to wrestle back - at least not in terms of the only metric that really matters.

Still, while Kieftenbeld's tough tackle might have set the tone for the home side, you can't help feeling that we contributed massively to our own downfall. A seemingly needlessly conceded corner from Mancienne and some sloppy all round play belied an early malaise that proved our downfall. Ben Osborn looked to have been fouled in the build up to the goal, but not before he'd already made a big error in giving the ball away. From his mistake, it was all-too easy to carve us open and for Adams to be presented with the chance he took with aplomb.

The shot-shy hosts had the worst goalscoring record in the league - and this was just the ninth goal of the campaign for them. It would have been interesting to see how Birmingham would've reacted had they not netted early on - you sense the tension on and off the field might have really worked in our favour. Yet, instead, we gifted them a goal and gave them something to hold onto and build from. At Hillsborough and Villa Park we'd also passed up the chance to twist the knife into a fragile host - it's a ruthlessness that we have to learn in this dog eat dog league.

We shouldn't denigrate the hosts for being physically strong. They played a (peaky) blinder here, getting tackles and interceptions in, being disciplined and breaking forward with purpose and threat. They might not have troubled Jordan Smith too much, but our defence could never rest on its laurels, particularly in the first half.

The likes of Kieran Dowell and Barrie McKay can learn much from tests such as this. Dowell is a gem of a player - as I've written before - but has to be stronger. He's a big lad and, in time, will learn to use his frame to his advantage. Only really Eric Lichaj in the Forest side seems to be able to use his body to shield the ball and keep an opponent at bay on a consistent basis. Eric's no giant and I'm sure he had to learn the hard way too.

Being physically strong as a team doesn't have to mean playing rough football - it's what allows you to impose yourself and dictate the way you want to play. In that sense, it's every bit as important to the success of Warburton's style as the silky passing and technique that his players have demonstrated at times.

All of these traits - being tougher physically, not letting an opponent off the hook and being alert from the opening whistle - need to be learned to give us a harder edge. If we'd had that edge and eradicated some sloppy play we'd have surely walked away with at least a 0-0 from Saturday's game. Indeed, we have to start coming away with a point from games that we can't manage to win.

Still, there's a danger that we let the result completely cloud our thinking. Ben Brereton's performance, for example, would've been viewed differently had the game been 0-0. What might've been labelled as a 'decent shift' became an 'ineffectual' performance through the prism of defeat. This was certainly a physical test for him. He might not always have been successful but it has to be hoped that days such as these will contribute to a learning curve for a player born in April 1999.

Brereton's deflected drive (from a delightful Dowell through ball), Dowell's long-range effort, Jason Cummings' late strike and a Zach Clough snapshot were all half chances and evidence that we were never out of the game. Yet, perhaps because we were behind, the play was often a little too rushed and we never got close to the passing groove of the Rangers romp two weeks before. While it's too much to ask for us to hit those heights every week, the style of play still offers a source of optimism and we weren't dreadful on Saturday - certainly not in comparison with some of the displays in recent years.

Yet, while it's clear to see progress in the cold light of day, that's not to say it's not intensely frustrating in the heat of the battle. When you know the players can do better - and have shown they are capable of much better - it's hard not to be left shaking your head at times. Many of the 2,800 travelling contingent were far from happy at the dogmatic insistence that every corner had to be taken short, for example. While I'm sure it made sense as a tactic - Birmingham would've had the beating of us in the air - it didn't really work and became predictable and easy to crowd out and defend. Could a clever run, a decoy or an accurate cross overcome a height advantage? Perhaps that's one to go back to the drawing board with.

Still, it's early days for this side. Like the beginning of the Paul Hart team, when David Prutton, Gareth Williams, Andy Reid et al found their feet, there will be frustrating afternoons to come. Hart's young guns came out stronger the other side, there's no reason to suggest that this bunch won't too.

The Championship schedule is unforgiving. Saturday should be a reminder, if needed, that there's much more for us to learn.

The game that no-one watched: The last time I saw Forest at Birmingham City

I'm looking forward to joining the 2,800 travelling Trickies at St Andrews on Saturday but, as the fixture approaches, I can't help but think back to the time I visited the ground and a game that was momentous for a couple of bad reasons.

Photo by Florian Müller on Unsplash

While most sane people enjoyed a leisurely start to 2002, perhaps sleeping off New Year's Eve excess, I spent January 1 taking in the midday kick off between us and Birmingham.

The game had been shifted to noon in order to cater for the viewers of ITV Digital, which then had the rights to show second tier games.

When we arrived, it seemed touch and go as to whether we'd actually see any football thanks to the freezing weather. Yet, perhaps with a view to putting on a show for the visiting cameras, the hosts encouraged home fans to come onto the pitch and do their bit to clear off the frost and snow. We could merely watch - heaven forbid the away fans should get on the pitch and potentially clash with the Brummies! - and hope that the army of amateur groundsmen could save us from having ventured down the A42 for nothing.

Yet, if the grand effort was for the benefit of the TV cameras they needn't have bothered. That's because, while the 20,000 crowd might have appreciated the spade work, the official viewing figure for the fixture was zero. Now, apparently, a zero rating is given to any programme with fewer than a thousand viewers but, let's face it, that doesn't sound too impressive either does it? Basically, and probably sensibly given the timing, no-one was watching beyond Bordesley.

Was this the final nail in the coffin for ITV Digital? Who knows. It was certainly not an endorsement of its unpopular scheduling arrangements. Indeed, I recall that many anti-ITV chants were sung in that period in protest of games moved to daft kick off times. Oddly, there are now more games than ever moved for TV in the second tier and yet there's much less protest. Maybe we're more accepting now or maybe Sky's coverage is just better. One thing is certain: by May 2002 ITV Digital stopped broadcasting.

What did people miss? Not much in truth. I don't remember too much about the action - save for the fact that Stern John cancelled out an early Birmingham opener and that Jim Brennan missed an absolute sitter that could have secured all three points.

Yet the equaliser that day was to be the second reason why this fixture proved to be significant. The goal was the 14th of the season for the Trinidadian striker and also his last in Forest colours. John was finally finding his feet in English football yet apparently had a clause in his contract that would have triggered a further payment to former club Columbus Crew. Given our perilous financial predicament, we then couldn't afford for our top scorer to net another goal and, soon after, flogged the £1.5 million man for a bargain £100,000 to promotion-chasing Birmingham.

That's a tale that serves as a timely reminder of the mess we were in in the immediate post-Premier League days. Indeed, it was shortly after the 2002 Birmingham away game that we sold Jermaine Jenas to Newcastle too. While the folly of the Fawaz era left much to be fixed, it isn't the only time we've been in trouble. Indeed, as the excellent Steve Wright said on Matchtalk this week, we've never really been known as a well-run club. Nigel Doughty tried to mop up the mess of the 2002 era - and we owe it to him too to go one step further than he managed.

So, all in all, with fans mucking in to clear the pitch, no TV viewers and the sorry end for our top scorer, that game nearly 16 years ago left an impression. I'm hoping that Saturday is memorable for better reasons.

Oh, and while we're here, here's the starting XI for that 2002 game:

Ward, Vaughan, Brennan, Hjelde, Scimeca, Williams, Prutton, Summerbee, Jenas, John, Lester. Subs: Johnson, Roche, Bopp, Thompson, Gray.

Feels a long time ago doesn't it?